My buddies and I were just talking about Leslie Nielsen a couple of weeks ago, at the cinema where we were watching the Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito fight. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders had just come out in their pekpek shorts to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and I told my friends that the girls’ version was my second-favorite rendition of the song, next only to Lt. Frank Drebin’s classic performance at the game between the California Angels and the Seattle Mariners.

Quinito Henson had an interesting series of articles last week about Manny Pacquiao’s claim as the greatest fighter ever, and by “interesting,” I mean “incredibly stupid,” even by Quinito’s usual standards. He prefaced the two-part column by saying that he would compare the achievements of four of the greatest boxers of all-time against those of Manny Pacquiao, and promised at the end of the first installment that he would try to make a “logical conclusion” as to which boxer deserves to be called the greatest.

If you were to believe Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) executive director Noli Eala’s tweets, the reason here’s no local television coverage of the ongoing 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games is because the government simply doesn’t care enough about Philippine sports. If the government actually bothered, Eala implies, then there would be no reason for everyone not to be able to watch our beloved Smart Gilas and the rest of our country’s athletes competing in the Asiad.

Scott Christ, Bad Left Hook: "We're witnessing something truly special. The NBA can keep LeBron James. Manny Pacquiao is at this point the most amazing athlete in all of sports. I stand by that statement."

The bloggers called it. Last weekend, The Boxing Bulletin gathered boxing’s top bloggers for a roundtable discussion about the fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, and none of them were particularly optimistic about Margarito’s chances.

Smart Gilas skipper, television host, and all-around good guy Chris Tiu joins us in the final installment of Sparring Sessions, a series of interviews with pundits, bloggers, and boxing fans that discuss issues that affect Pacquiao, Filipino boxing, and combat sports in general, veering into topics that mainstream media rarely talk about. Tiu and the rest of the Smart Gilas team are currently in China to compete in the Asian Games, but before he left, he was gracious enough to talk about his former co-host, the Vegas crowd, and playing for Philippine pride.

With only a few days away from Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Antonio Margarito on Nov. 14, Kabataan Partylist Rep. Raymond ‘Mong’ Palatino joins us for Sparring Sessions, a series of interviews with pundits, bloggers, and boxing fans that discuss issues that affect Manny Pacquiao, Filipino boxing, and combat sports in general, veering into topics that mainstream media rarely talk about. Rep. Palatino was gracious enough to answer our questions even while he was traveling, and had to send his replies via mobile phone, hence the short answers as he talks about his most celebrated colleague.

If you’re any kind of Manny Pacquiao fan, there’s probably nothing on this video that you haven’t seen before. It just wasn’t very well done. Still, it bears mentioning that ‘60 Minutes’ on CBS is still the top-rated news magazine show in the United States, and while television networks don’t draw the viewership that they had in years past, this segment probably introduced the pound-for-pound champ to audiences who might not yet have been familiar with his oeuvre.

Inquirer sports assistant editor Francis T.J. Ochoa joins us for the latest edition of Sparring Sessions, a series of interviews with pundits, bloggers, and boxing fans that discuss issues that affect Manny Pacquiao, Filipino boxing, and combat sports in general, veering into topics that mainstream media rarely talk about. Francis, who has covered a number of Pacquiao bouts, talks about issues that local journalists encounter when following the pound-for-pound champion, what the future holds for Freddie Roach, and the politics within Manny Pacquiao’s huge entourage.